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When Iain Ward was in his 20s, he did medical trials.
You know, for fun. And for profit.
He was working in sports medicine at the time, teaching fitness classes. But that job didn’t take up his entire days, so he started getting involved in studies “because they are not as dangerous as episodes of The Simpsons might lead you to believe, and the money that they give is huge,” he says.
In 2019, he did one trial that involved getting CT scans and monitoring brain wavelengths. There was nothing strange about Ward’s readings. There was nothing strange about him at all. So, when he went on to the next trial and it too required brain scans, he didn’t expect researchers would find anything.
Unfortunately, they did.
“They said, ‘We’ve detected you’ve got a brain tumor there. It looks like it’s benign, but you need to get that sorted out straight away,'” Ward says. Then came more tests, and worse news: They’d made a mistake. The tumor wasn’t benign. It was growing. Ward had stage 3 brain cancer.
In the period between his first MRI and those later tests, he’d begun doing livestreams with his housemate, because it COVID lockdowns had just kicked in and Ward needed to find a new way to stay busy. One of their friends said the streams–where Ward and his buddy would play video games, listen to music, and make cocktails–“looked like something straight from YouTube.” Ward had already dipped his toes into social media before his diagnosis and had a solid background in filming and editing, so hearing that he was making stuff fit for YouTube made him think he might as well start putting videos up there.
As he prepared to head into a long, long cycle of treatments including brain surgery, chemotherapy, and radiotherapy, Ward figured he needed to “mention the elephant in the room” to his growing social audience. “Otherwise,” he says, “it’s going to be very weird.”
“I was like, ‘Right guys, look, I have cancer. I’m not looking for the pity party, but we’re going to make a little thing for cancer research along the way that every time I do something simple in the video game, you donate a little bit of money,'” he says. “It’s addressing the problem, but not making it into a big deal.”
Now, Ward–who goes by The King of Chemo across socials including TikTok (where he has 4.7 million followers) and Instagram (2.5 million)–has been doing this “little thing for cancer research” for four years. He’s talked openly about how his brain cancer is terminal, and how he wants to spend all the time he has left raising as much money as possible for cancer research. He also wants to set world records; the current one he’s gunning for is the Guinness World Record for most money raised by a person running a marathon: £2.3 million.
In hopes of beating that figure he’s teaming up with the American Cancer Society and plans to hold a massive fundraiser later this year that’ll see him run a marathon every single day for seven days, across all seven continents. He’ll start in Antarctica, run 26 miles there, then fly on to the next continent, run 26 miles there, and on and on. It’ll be a grueling challenge, but one that’s worth it to help push cancer research forward, he says.
And it’s a challenge he couldn’t do alone. He wants to make sure the people who follow him on social media and contribute to his fundraising are recognized for how vital they are in his mission. “The world record for winning a charity award is as an individual, but by the very nature of what charity is, it can’t be by an individual,” he says. “Let’s say it’s just you and me. I get you to donate. Now, therefore, we both achieve this thing together. I couldn’t have achieved it without you.”
Check out our chat with him below.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Iain Ward: Leading up to the diagnosis, not especially interesting. I suppose the only thing that’s significant would be that I started doing medical trials because I hate doing things that I don’t love doing. Every job that I ever worked in was a pretty fun job. I’m from Ireland. I moved over to London when I was around 20, just because we were going through a recession. I always liked the idea of joining the firefighting brigade. I started off being an ambulance…I think you guys call it an ambulance tech? Is what the equivalent is? Oh no, you guys would call it an EMT.
Iain Ward: It’s the same in Ireland. In the UK they call it ambulance tech. I was going for that. Didn’t get it. Went to nursing. Hated nursing. I thought the two would be similar fields. They are not. Then switched into sports science. From that, I started doing jobs that I enjoyed: teaching fitness classes, running a gym, and then that moved to teaching kids how to do basic sports movements.
Alongside with doing that, though, in order to really make a serious amount of money in the fitness industry, you’ve got to work like ugly, ugly hours and I just didn’t like doing that. I would teach fitness classes and then during the day, I would do absolutely nothing other than look around for other particular jobs or just kill my time.
To compensate for that, I would do medical research trials because they are not as dangerous as episodes of The Simpsons might lead you to believe, and the money that they give is huge. Basically, leading up to the moment where I found out that I myself have brain cancer, was during one of those medical trials.
Iain Ward: The lack of autonomy. When you are working in the ambulance and emergency care, it’s a lot of responsibility. Peter Parker, with great power comes great responsibility. I like that. I like the pressure of, this person’s life is in a bad state. If you do well, you might be able to help them. If you do poorly, then their situation will do poorly as well. It’s like you really feel the difference of if you are helping someone, it was because you were there.
Whereas with nursing, a simple example would be, there was someone who had MS, which if anyone doesn’t know, it’s basically like a neurological depletion of the body over time. You might be able to use your hands now, but then in a year’s time, you might not be able to. It’s degenerative.
There was a lady that we had who, her neck, she had some strength in her neck muscles and it would tilt off. I tried to help her head up by putting a headband around the top of her head. I got in a lot of trouble for doing that because the staff were like, “You didn’t talk to the occupational therapists about this and you’ve endangered her.” It was just like, “Guys, come on. Her head kept flopping down.” She was delighted when I solved the problem, and it was just like the bureaucracy of it all, the red tape it was like, “You’re not allowed to help her.” It really frustrated me. That started the tipping point of the things I didn’t like about nursing as compared to ambulance work.
Iain Ward: Oh, there was absolutely no suspecting anything. Now when I do the medical trials, very rarely would I actually do them back to back to back. When doing a medical trial, you need to wait at least three months until you’re able to do another one just because it’s like, we have to make sure that whatever we’ve done to you in this time window, we need to have enough time to make sure that it doesn’t affect the next medical trial. This was the first time that I ever went three months and then just pretty much started another one straight away. Normally medical trials, they need to be very specific with who the candidates are that they’re looking out for.
This is where it really gets interesting. In the previous trial, they were scanning brain function. They were scanning brain waves. I think it was called a CT scan. They were actually checking my brain wavelengths and they were all fine, absolutely no problem. This is where it’s scientific medical research, they were scanning my brain and they couldn’t see anything that was not normal. However, when I went to the next medical trial, they were doing something a little bit more specific, so it required an MRI, which is the top, the Mac Daddy of all scans that you can have when in the medical realm. They said, “We’ve detected you’ve got a brain tumor there. It looks like it’s benign, but you need to get that sorted out straight away.”
A big part of that was I didn’t have any symptoms. I wasn’t lethargic. I wasn’t losing my ability to speak. I wasn’t dizzy. They were asking, “Can you remember recently, has anything changed in your lifestyle?” I was like, “Nothing at all.” Had I not done that MRI testing, I would not have found out about my brain tumor. In many ways, it saved my life.
The second time we got the scan, that’s where they said, “Okay. We made a mistake the first time. Our estimate was that it was benign. We can see now that it’s growing. It’s definitely not benign. It’s likely to be cancerous. We need to start looking at treatment. We need to start looking at brain surgery. We need to start looking at chemotherapy, radiotherapy, the works.”
Iain Ward: Pretty quickly, to be perfectly honest. My second scan was a little bit delayed because COVID was just breaking out. We were in lockdown. In order to keep busy, me and my housemate, we started coming up with this livestream, playing video games while listening to a particular album and making a cocktail. It was like, “All right, we’ll randomize what cocktail we make, what album we listen to, what video game we play.” It was a bit of fun.
Then someone suggested to us, like, “Guys, this is like something straight from YouTube.” Me and my housemate looked at one another. I was like, “Maybe we should start making this into a YouTube thing,” and we did. I was already doing stuff on social media. It wasn’t big in the slightest, but I had developed a foundation for making videos, editing videos, and posting them online. With that, I wanted to keep this delight, the video game thing going because I felt that it was a productive way to do something that can easily slip into being a nasty time-wasting habit.
I then thought to myself, “If I’m going in for brain surgery afterwards, there’s going to be a scar on the side of my head that you’re going to be able to see very clearly.” My hair covers it up a lot now, but you can see where the radiotherapy blasted away some of my hairline. I’m very lucky that I have big thick, dirty Irish hair that covers it up. It was on the side of my head, so no comb-over needed.
At the time, my surgery, they did have to obviously shave the hair away and you could very clearly see a big snake of a scar. I was like, “I need to address that. I need to mention the elephant in the room. Otherwise, it’s going to be very weird.” I was like, “Right, I’m not going to make it my whole thing where it’s like, I’ve got cancer, follow on my page. I’m just trying to do this thing.”
I was like, “Right guys, look, I have cancer. I’m not looking for the pity party, but we’re going to make a little thing for cancer research along the way that every time I do something simple in the video game, you donate a little bit of money.” It’s addressing the problem, but not making it into a big deal. Then when they had the final prognosis done, after they’d done the brain surgery and they did more medical tests on the actual living tissue rather than just work off of an MRI scan, they were able to deduce that this is actually not the worst of what we thought it would be, but on the bad side of what we predicted it would be. From there, I was like, “Ah, right. The cancer situation has been dialed up to 11. I’m going to go with the charity fundraising thing up to 11 as well, and I’m going to, like, never mind the video game stuff. I’m just going to make the social media channel 100% about trying to break a world record.”
Then because I had the idea, in my mind, I just looked like, “Okay, what’s the largest amount of money that has been raised for running a marathon?” A marathon is basically like a cake sale. It’s mostly about charity fundraising, and then there’s about five people who are the professional marathon runners. Everyone else is doing it for a bit of fun and often doing it for charity in the challenge itself. That was the first thing I looked to because I had done a handful of marathons myself.
It was like, “Okay, the world record is Great British £2.3 million, which is around US$3 million at the moment.” I thought that’s very hard, but it doesn’t sound like something that couldn’t be achieved with enough drive and willpower. That was it. I was just like, “Right. Yes, that’s the first thing that I looked for, but, yes, all right. I’m not going to bother looking for anything else.” I just set myself to that goal and it was like, that’s all I want to do now.
Iain Ward: This year overall, we came to about a third of a million. But most money raised for a marathon, it’s like every year it comes to a reset. We think Guinness World Records, as you can imagine, are a very busy organization. Often when people get Guinness World Records, they’re paying for them. We haven’t paid for attention from them, so we’re assuming that every year they restart it that you need to raise the funds for the Boston Marathon in 2024, not the Boston Marathon in 2026, and raise the money over the course of two years. We’ve raised a third of a million U.S. dollars up until this point, but we’re back to square one for the year of 2024.
If you were to ask that question in a month, I’d have way more answers, but we’re not at the point where we can fully announce the new sponsors that we have for the Boston and the London Marathon. I assure you, we’re officially at zero, but unofficially, we’re at about £30,000 for this year.
Iain Ward: Even though this is an interview, shhh, don’t tell anyone.
Iain Ward: No, you’re fine. As long as I’m not naming names, we’re not going to get in trouble.
Iain Ward: Oh, the whole world. Oh, that’s way, way, way in the future. That’s a future concept. That is something that I’d love to try and do. Before then, the sooner one– Let’s go in chronological order of what we’ve got planned for this year, and that’ll make a little more sense.
Iain Ward: This year, not circumnavigating the world, but we are doing a marathon in every one of the seven continents of the world over seven days. In my mind, that’s going to be harder than circumnavigating the world, because if you’re going to circumnavigate the world, you can take a day off.
Iain Ward: We sleep on the planes that are going to be flying us around to the different continents. Also, for anyone who is just thinking, “Oh yes, seven continents is the whole world,” something that people can easily forget about, myself included, is Antarctica is a continent, and that’s our first one. We have to do it the first one because the weather is so all over the place. It’s so unpredictable. We have a week window, and then we’ve got to pick like, “Okay, the weather is meant to be good in Antarctica on these days, let’s go right now.” We have 24 hours to get in there, do the marathon, and get back out.
Iain Ward: Yes. Every marathon, it’s a set amount of distance. It’s either 42 kilometers, or 26.2 miles
Iain Ward: That’s going to be in mid-October.
Iain Ward: Oh yes, absolutely. Absolutely. We think we’re going to hopefully have the last marathon, which is in Miami. That is the North American continental part. We’re having that as the hopeful finish line. However, if we don’t, we are doing one marathon after that, only a couple of days after as well. October, we have 10 marathons on either side of October and then eight within the actual month itself. We have the Berlin Marathon at the end of September, then the Chicago Marathon at the start of October. Then we have the seven marathons more towards the start of the middle of October to the end of October.
Then we have the New York City Marathon, which is at the start of November, so 10 marathons, quite cramped.
Iain Ward: Yes. I’m trying to think. I don’t really know. I think just because I was playing sport most of my life during high school, and then that just kept going on when it’s a different physical. I’ve always enjoyed challenging myself in different ways. Playing rugby, there was strong social element to that. I think that might’ve been where it started tying me in. Doing difficult things with other people is a great bonding experience. I think through that it was always a hobby of mine, and then it became highly associated with work.
I suppose here we are now, and it’s just something that I have an amount of knowledge in and an amount of skill in. It’s like that book. The book is called Flow. I can’t remember the name of the author, but it’s all about happiness and it’s about what’s called the flow state. The flow state is where you are in an area where you are competent, but you are still doing something that is difficult. If you’re able to accomplish the thing that you can just about accomplish, that’s where people get their most happiness from. Like a pianist who’s performing something like Rachmaninoff, which is incredibly difficult, but they just about are able to do it, and then afterwards, the relief and the euphoria of having completed something that is difficult to do, and it’s like you rose to the occasion.
Iain Ward: Yes, there’ve been two major videos that have set things off. They’re very similar theme. They’re both just me going for an actual run myself and then just screaming into the camera saying– Am I allowed to swear on this podcast?
Iain Ward: Okay. Yes. It’s me just saying, “Fuck cancer! Fuck you! I’m going to say fuck you to cancer!” People can just relate to that. Then the same thing where I literally turn the camera in order to show off the background, the landscape that the area that I’m in, and then almost shouting at a mountain or shouting into a valley, which both adds an echo effect while at the same time shows the interesting place that I’m in. It’s dramatic-looking, and heavy rainfall, and cinematic a little bit.
In terms of channel growth, both channels really just exploded off those videos because a big part of what my whole shtick is to not prioritize asking people for donations. You can donate if you want to, but I’m more focused on getting a channel that’s so large that I can then approach sponsorships and say like, hey, my protein for an example, I will happily advertise your product in exchange for you guys donating money to cancer research.
Yes, so that’s the unique selling point. No one else is doing that as far as I’ve seen. I’m sure at some point someone will go, that’s a good idea and clearly it’s working for this guy’s got, across the board, seven and a half million followers and he’s raised a huge amount of money for cancer research. Hopefully, by the end of this year, it’ll be significantly more money raised.
Iain Ward: Oh, yes. 100%. Nothing. Way more than a full-time job. A full-time job means that on the weekends you have time off. It’s nonstop, really. Everything I do I’m either doing it in a way where I can think like, “Where’s this going to? Is this somehow reflective of what’s going to be a future project?” As an example, the desk that I’m sitting at now, the light structure in the back, it’s been set up now, a Twitch account so that I can play video games and hopefully this doesn’t get wonky.
Hold on. Let me move this. [turning the camera] That there is a treadmill. I’ve tested this out and I’m going to be playing video games while running on a treadmill. Yes. Again, something that’s unique. Whenever I’m playing video games now, that is me having time off, but there is a little voice in the back of my mind being like, “Ooh, take note of this game. This game is going to be easier for you to play on a treadmill.” Or, “Oh, that game, you could attach arm braces to your wrists and you could row with them on a rowing machine while doing that.” Both of these things I’ve tested out and it’s viable. It’s hard to do, but it’s viable.
Whenever I go out and I have a couple of points with my friends often, I’m now thinking like, “Right, you’re four points in. You’ve had your fun, go back. You don’t want to wake up hungover, otherwise you’re not going to be able to do this, this, this, this, and this effectively or to the best of your ability.” Everything, it’s like I’m now a schizophrenic and I have a second voice in my mind that’s always just like social media, followers, donations, film, blah, blah, blah, get back on it. Yes, it’s stressful, but it’s stress that I want.
Iain Ward: Yes. It is positive stress. Much like running any kind of a race, you can do it easy peasy if you want, but when you put yourself under a lot of stress and you cross the line often, you’ll feel better about yourself for having put yourself through that.
Iain Ward: That was one of the reasons why I’ve been putting it off for so long because it was the breaking into a new field, even though I started on something that was more directly associated with video games. I watched lots of videos on YouTube where it was like monetary income of the different streaming channels. I’ve been doing TikTok quite a lot just because I suppose I’ve gotten used to it and the audience reactions and the mini little donations that would come in, so I stuck to what I was comfortable with.
Then I think the big turning point for me for making it was like, I have to start working on Twitch was where I saw the differences, and charitable donations, and how much more of a potential growth it went to. I was like, this is not a proper use of my time and skills. It’s good that I’ve gotten used to the situations of doing a live stream, but now it’s more, you know what to do. You should be doing it on the best platform that’s suitable for what you want to achieve.
Iain Ward: Yes. You were talking about the circumnavigation of the world there. That’s the third thing that we have in the future plans. There is one that we are legitimately planning on doing, hopefully after we break the world record for the marathons in this year is to do 52 miles. Because a 26.2 is a marathon, it’s a set distance. A double marathon is 52 miles. Now, depending on which Wikipedia page you look through, there are around 52 countries and territories in the continent of Europe and it’s 52 weeks in a year.
I want to do a double marathon in each of the 52 countries and territories of Europe in one singular year. Every week, it’s a different double marathon, and turn that into a documentary and we’d be seeing so much of the continent. I just think it’d be very interesting. Of course, it’s all for charity, but this time I would either be trying to break my world record that hopefully we achieve this year. If not, if we have beaten the world record, the world record for most money raised for a charity, just full stop, is £37 million, and that is something that is going to be the next world record that I want to break.
Iain Ward: Yes. Obviously we’ll be documenting loads and we make it into as much of a documentary as humanly possible, but don’t think we’re going to be able to put much of it on social media at the time that we are doing it, seeing, so it’s like the signal in Antarctica just isn’t good. [laughs]
Tubefilter: Yes, probably not the best. Is there anything else you want people to know about you and this journey you’re on?
Iain Ward: My focus is not asking people to donate. It’s to get sponsorships through followers. I think people would like to donate there, because they can be like, “I donated £50, I’m a part of this world record.”
Iain Ward: That’s a big thing that I’m really trying to push, that once you follow my social media account, that you are a part of the team. It’s weird. The world record for winning a charity award is as an individual, but by the very nature of what charity is, it can’t be by an individual. Let’s say it’s just you and me. I get you to donate. Now, therefore, we both achieve this thing together. I couldn’t have achieved it without you. For it to be an individual, it doesn’t make sense to me.
I would like to reinforce as often as possible that everybody who follows my channel is a part of the world record that we are all trying to achieve, whether they are able to donate with actual money or not. It’s helpful. Following the channel is enough, because it attracts others, it creates a momentum, it creates a magnitude that, much like anything in the solar system, the larger a heavenly body is, the more gravity it is. That’s why Jupiter protects us, because it’s the largest planet, and it sucks in all the asteroids that fly around in our solar system, and they don’t hit us. That’s because big boy Jupiter is there to help us out. That’s what I want to happen with the social media thing, that, the larger it gets, the more people it attracts, because you can see more people follow the channel, more money is raised for a charity that affects everyone in the world. That’s why I see everyone as one big team.
Iain Ward is repped by Viral Nation.
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